You might say Kenya-based Safaricom (M-PESA) helped start a banking revolution, one coming to the world from Africa. "Africa is the Silicon Valley of banking," says Carol Realini, executive chairman of Obopay, a California-based mobile-banking innovator.
"The future of banking is being defined here," Realini says. "The new models for what will be mainstream throughout the world are being incubated here."
Mobile banking has been available for years in Japan and elsewhere, but only on a limited basis. M-Pesa now has 19,000 agents today. Of Safaricom's 16 million customers, 12 million have M-Pesa accounts — this in a nation of 39 million people.
Finance: Kenya's Banking Revolution
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Africa is the Silicon Valley of Banking
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
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